Author: Pete Huryk

I'm an author and public speaker from New Jersey. My topics are usually aimed toward teenagers and range from self-esteem/self-reliance to peak performance in sports.
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In Search of Better

Pete Huryk

mirrorIn my dating years, the term “trading up” was used quite often.  I’m not sure if it is still common but it basically meant finding a new and better boy/girlfriend before breaking up with your present one.  It was a regular practice that safeguarded the person against the uncertainty of being single while creating the possibility of a “better” relationship.  Trading up is not an unreasonable reaction for someone who is searching for better.

In many areas, the idea of better is completely subjective.  Partners, jobs, towns, sports and so many other things can be held up in comparison with “better” only being true in the eye of each individual beholder.  Despite this subjectivity, we use these comparisons to find the people, things and situations that will make us happy.  The search for better is a natural human inclination.  All of our senses are keenly attuned to find the subtle differences that make someone or something better.

The most difficult place to look is often the place that we are most familiar.  In the trading up of the dating world, I wonder how often the thought has arisen “what if I were better?”  It is easy to be self-righteous and assume that we are faultless.  Unfortunately we all know that it isn’t true.  So wouldn’t it serve us all, if the search was not for a better partner or place but a search for a better self?  Then we might live up rather than trade up.  There would be no deception and no fear of being single because we would know our value from staring it in the mirror each day.

Perhaps you do need to move on to a new person, place or situation but remember that the one thing that you will always carry with you is YOU!  So be prepared in that better situation to be better yourself.

Be better today!

Pete

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Life at 65 MPH

Pete Huryk

GapThis afternoon I was driving back from Pennsylvania through the Delaware Water Gap.  As I was driving, I listened to the audio version of a biography on Teddy Roosevelt (I’m really cool).  As I listened to the stories of events that happened a century ago, it started me thinking about my surroundings.  The Delaware Water Gap is a marvel of nature that makes the one hundred year space between Teddy and I seem like a millisecond.  I wondered, where are we going in such a hurry?

The pace of almost everything seems to be skyrocketing upward.  For example travel: in little over one hundred years, we’ve gone from walking, riding horses and trains to cars to planes to supersonic jets to hyper-loops (Elon Musk).  The pace is not limited to travel.  It affects technology, communication, commerce and change.

As we move at this speed, it seems that in many ways the world is getting smaller.  We can get to a place in three hours that used to take several days.  We can communicate with someone on the other side of the world instantaneously.  While this speed is a great advantage in many respects, it does rob us of the details that life has to offer.  At 65 MPH the river and the mountains are a moving backdrop to a functional carnival ride.  Having hiked the trails in the Gap, I know there’s a large stream that empties into the river.   My kids have played on the moss covered stones and tickled their toes with the crisp clear water.  You can’t get there traveling at 65 MPH.  You need to slow down, stop the car and get out to walk.  Speed is efficient but is it effective?

The underlying thought that keeps coming back to me is, where are we going in such a hurry?  If our destination is new frontiers that we’ve never seen then I’m fully in favor.  If we are trying to get to McDonald’s before they stop serving breakfast, then I wonder if we’ve missed something.  If we are on the web or our phones to extract new ideas from thought leaders that we’d never get the chance to meet in real life, then the price of our data package is worth it.  If we are re-watching the same youtube video of the kitten playing the piano 100 times, then the price is too high.  Inventions are intended to enhance our experiences and not rob them from us.

sunriseAs we move faster and the world gets smaller, I hope that we take time to truly experience life.  Use the technology that you have as a key to open doors rather than a chain to lock you down.  If you have a device in your pocket that can contact almost anyone you choose, use it to tell someone something of substance.  Don’t text them a message that says nothing.  Our lives should be filled with experiences that make it worth the while.  Blurring those experiences with speed and efficiency may get us more experience but it will be more blurriness.

“Quality or Quantity.  Don’t tell me they’re the same!”  – Greg Graffin

Go out and experience!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The V.O.C.

Pete Huryk

VocIn today’s high-speed world, people use acronyms more often than ever before.  In the past people hoped to be the MVP, a VIP or the CEO.    Now we are saying IDK, LOL, BRB and other things that I don’t even feel comfortable writing in acronym form.  Today I’ve decided to coin my own acronym.  It applies to many people and even applies to me at times.  Rather than being a VIP, we seem intent upon being the V.O.C.

The VOC is the Victim Of Circumstance.  It’s a really tough place to live.  Circumstances keep piling up on these individuals that they don’t like.  The world has thrust all of this upon them.  They don’t like their job, school, boyfriend/girlfriend, lack of popularity, lack of influence or prospects for the future.  These people have it, THE WORST EVER!.  Go ahead and try to tell them about a bad situation in your life and they can find one from theirs that is ten times worse.  The worst thing in most cases about being a member of the VOC club is that you have to choose to be a member!

That is one heck of a choice to make.  There are many things in this world that we should choose to be, a victim should not be one of them.  The problem with being a victim is the lack of power.  It is by nature a position of weakness and defense.  At some point the VOC decided that it was better to be weak, defensive and blameless rather than taking responsibility for themselves.  This is a dangerous bargain to make because eventually it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When you are wearing brown tinted glasses, everything in the world looks like feces.

So rather than being the VOC, become the DOC.  The Director Of Circumstances is not completely in control of circumstance but acts more like a traffic cop.  The DOC decides what he or she will let pass and what needs to be stopped and evaluated further.  The traffic cop is separate from the traffic.  They may cause it, they may alleviate it but they are not the traffic.  Ultimately, they can usually move to a different intersection if their position becomes too much to handle.  It is a game of choice.

Direct your life today!  Don’t be a victim within it!

Pete

 

Blogpost, self-reliance, SoccerLifeBalance

Life is…

Pete Huryk

1998In 1998, my best friend, Schaefer, and I spent a month in Europe.  We truly went to watch five matches at the World Cup but we also traveled to England, Spain, Germany and France.  In many ways you could not have picked a more perfect vacation for me: best friend, Europe and soccer.

We actually arrived prior to the Cup starting and did some traveling in England and then headed to Barcelona, Spain.  After spending about three days in Barcelona, we were scheduled to take a train to Paris on Sunday in order to pick up our ticket and start the soccer part of our trip.  That Saturday, we were taking the Metro down to the Las Ramblas area.  We sat on the bench waiting for the train.  Schaef was rearranging some things between his money belt and backpack when the train arrived.  Thirty seconds after the train pulled away, Schaef realized that he’d left his money belt on the bench with his passport in it.  (Don’t judge Schaef here, out of character moment.)  At the next stop we turned around and went back but the money belt and everything in it was gone.

We figured out where the US Embassy was and took the train to get there.  Please bear in mind that the internet was not as widely accessible at the time.  Upon our arrival we were hit with the next problem, it was Saturday and the Embassy was closed.  The only person at the Embassy was a guard who only spoke Spanish.  I explained the situation to the guard and he put me on the phone with an official from the Embassy.  In order to cross the border into France (pre European Union), we needed a copy of his passport (we had) and a police report explaining that the passport had been stolen.  My Spanish abilities were put to the test by filling out a police report.  So the next day we went to the train station with our flimsy documents and a great deal of hope.  Luckily we made it across the border.

On Monday morning we had our next hurdle to clear.  We needed to pick up our tickets before 5pm at a hotel on the outskirts of Paris.  Since the tickets were in Schaef’s name, we needed his passport first.  We went to the US Embassy in Paris and spent hours waiting.  I don’t recall what time we got there but I know what time we left 4:30pm.  As fast as we could run with our large packs on our backs, we got to the Metro.  We found the street we needed on the Metro map.  There were two stops on that street but we had no idea which would be closer to the hotel.  50/50 chance and we blew it!  The hotel was about a mile up the road and it was 4:55.  So again, we ran as fast as we could and with our packs on our backs did about a 7 minute per mile pace.  At 5:02, we reached the hotel!  Upon entering we were informed that the pick up time for tickets had been extended two hours.

From a month long trip to Europe with my best friend, going to the biggest soccer event in the world, this is the story that I’ve told the most.  I remember who won all of the games that we saw but I can’t remember the scores.  How is it possible that my favorite part of the trip is when everything went wrong?

Life is not a spectator’s sport.  It is intended for people to take what God, Allah or nature has given to them and do the most that they can with it.  The times when you are going to figure out what you are truly made of are the times when things fall apart.  ANYONE can take the guided tours at the Louvre or Prado.  It takes little thought or ingenuity and it teaches you very little about yourself.  The limits of you are not found on the guided tours.  Easy, comfortable and failure-free are the lives of spectators.

We spend much of our life avoiding something that we call “failure”.  Usually failure is associated with mistakes and we try to avoid making big ones at all costs.  Schaef made a pretty big mistake.  It wasn’t fatal and it allowed us to live in a scenario with an outcome that was uncertain.  Uncertainty is something that we need at times in life.  Balance between certainty and uncertainty is what makes life interesting.  The thing is that we spend so much time trying not to fail that we often fail to live.  Anything that is truly worth having is a gamble on some level.

Life is a scenario where the outcome is uncertain.  That is part of the deal.  If you are looking for a life without failure, discomfort and difficulty, then you are looking for boredom.  Don’t go looking to fail but don’t avoid it either.  Failure is often where you learn the most about yourself and what you’re made of.  Make yourself better by learning from failure.

Get out there people!

Pete

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Ketchup Sandwiches!

Pete Huryk

Ketchup SandwichWhen I was a kid, I was an extremely picky eater.  For an extended period of time, the one food that I would make for myself was ketchup sandwiches.  It really needs no explanation but just in case, it is simply two pieces of bread with ketchup in the middle.  (Do not judge my mother, I did this mainly at her protest or without her knowledge.)

Ketchup is intended to be a condiment.  Something that is a taste enhancer.  It should not have been a staple of anyone’s diet.  However I made it a center of my diet between my sandwiches and drowning things so completely in ketchup that I was often asked, “do you want fries with your ketchup?”  Luckily this was just a phase and eventually I found a lot more foods to fill my plate.  It’s an easy thing to explain away in these terms.  A young boy, who is afraid to try new foods, relies heavily on something that is safe but nutritionally empty to make it through.

This concept becomes more difficult to explain when we look at ourselves.  We’re not little kids anymore yet we cling heavily to things of little or no value.  In small doses, things like junk food, television, alcohol, etc. are not life altering forces.  However when those “condiments” become staples of your life’s diet, it is hard to say whether you are truly living or if you are just alive.

I’m looking in the mirror here.  Have a great weekend people!

Pete

 

 

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U.S.A. at the World Cup (Women vs. Men)

Pete Huryk
Julie Johnston, our best player in this WC in my opinion.
Julie Johnston, our best player in this WC in my opinion.

The United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) will be playing in the semi-final of the Women’s World Cup tomorrow.  In the soccer world there is a lot of discussion about how the team has played, coaching decisions and comparisons to their competition.  Depending on who reads this post, I may be crucified for my next statement but it is the main point of my post.  The USWNT will most likely not raise the Cup this year.

The reason that this could be an inflammatory statement is the expectation that surrounds the USWNT.  The fact that they have won the Cup twice before has created an underlying feeling that we should do it again.  The casual sports fan can get behind the USWNT because there’s a possibility of a winner.

On the flipside of that equation is the US Men’s National Team.  Success is measured by much smaller milestones.  It is not that the USMNT is horrible but we enter international competition with hope rather than expectation.  A loss in the semi-final of a World Cup for the men is a great success.  The same result for the women is a disappointment, even against an opponent like Germany.  I haven’t dealt with “Soccer Issues” in a while on the site but this seemed the perfect time to meld this thought with a message.

Expectation and hope are slightly different degrees of the same emotion.  The difference lies in the amount of certainty prior to the event.  They both have their place in life and should be used in the proper situation.  With regards to most things, I would prefer to look at most situations with hope.  It is one of the reasons why I support underdog teams.  There is a sense of doubt that brings focus and passion.  Expectation can bring complacency.  Very few things are certain in this life.  With expectation, failure is more crushing because you’ve lost something that you thought was yours.  With hope, you realize that nothing is inherently yours and the possibility is as exciting as the achievement.

“Hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things” -Andy Dufresne

Good luck tomorrow ladies!

Pete

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“Daddy, Watch This!”

Pete Huryk

“Daddy, Watch this!” is a phrase that I heard about two hundred times yesterday.  My seven year old daughter was saying it as she performed an underwater back-flip or some other trick in the pool.  The consistent request got me thinking about the request.  While she was extremely happy to do the trick on her own, it became even more important that she share it with me.  The perfection of her delivery did not matter, each attempt was important even the “failures”.

As she flipped in the water, I thought about my students, adult friends and myself.  We generally primp, polish and perfect everything before we put it on display.  The obvious reason for this is a form of fear.  We have failure shamed out of us by the time we are teenagers.  The unfortunate thing is that failure is a necessary ingredient to all progress.  Although public display of failure isn’t particularly necessary, I’m not sure many of us seek out failure in private either.  In a society where no one ever fails, we stand still and become spectators watching the same old tired tricks that we’ve seen before.

So now what do you do?  What do I do?  We fail forward.  We try to top what we’ve done before with the childlike optimism that we can.  Then as we get closer and closer to our coveted goal, we can scream at the top of our lungs “WATCH THIS!”  Perhaps we’ll fall on our faces.  However I’d rather be face-down ready to try again than be standing on the sidelines with an empty heart and only criticism to offer the world.

Go fail forward today!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Scumbag and Tragedy Report

Pete Huryk

100_9372My son’s first birthday party is a memory that I will never forget.  The unfortunate thing is that the reason that particular birthday sticks in my memory is not the cake, the presents or the joy of my wonderful little boy celebrating his first year on this planet.  It is memorable because of what happened the next day.  The next day a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.  The two events are forever coupled in my mind and at the time shook the very foundation of who I am as a person.

In the aftermath of the shootings, there were several practical things that needed to be done.  I was teaching at school less than two hours from VA Tech.  We instituted protocols for locking down the campus and dealt with the grief of students.  There was a lingering problem that I had trouble reconciling.  I had an extreme amount of guilt for bringing a child into a world that was capable of such evil.  After celebrating the life of one of the people that I love the most, this act of evil made me question what I had done.  The tragedy in Charleston is the latest reminder that the evil of man is still here.  My heart goes out to the people who have lost someone in these senseless acts.  The victims, their families and friends are the only ones that matter now.  I know they are hurting much worse than I was over eight years ago but I have hope for them and us.  For my own part, I was able to pull myself out of the pit of despair that I had created for myself.  There were two words that brought me out: focus and hope.

By focusing on the evil of the world, I had made it my reality.  It is an easy thing to do at times because the media shows us regularly what horrible people can do.  This is not particularly their fault because we pay more attention to tragedy and they are giving us what “gets the ratings”.  However I choose to focus on other things now.  I see joy in my daughter’s eyes for big events like “field day”.  My eyes turn to Mrs. Lobby, the kindergarten teacher, who pours her heart and soul into little minds every day.  You’ll never see those things on the “scumbag and tragedy” report in the evening but they still exist and that is the world that I live in.

My other word is hope.  I have hope and confidence that the good in people will spread and win.  It is my influence on my children and the other people that I have contact with that I can affect the future.  I am a small drop in a large ocean but I hope that my small ripple combine with those of others can create a tidal wave of good that reaches around the world.  We must find the good in each other and expose that to the rest of the world.

As my final thought, I’d like for you to imagine two pitchers and a large bucket.  In one pitcher is red colored water and in the other there is blue.  If you only pour red into the bucket, the bucket water will be all red.  If you pour equal of both, you get purple.  The water has no choice what color it is.  However we have a choice what we put out into the world.  If you want the world to be greedy, selfish, hateful and driven by negative thoughts and emotion, then put those out there.  Recognize that you have a choice.  I don’t have rose colored glasses on and I’m not going to break into a verse of “kumbaya”.  The only thing that I want you to realize is that you have a choice.  The world is not inherently evil nor is it inherently good.  People have choices.

Be good to one another.

Pete

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The Pepsi Challenge

Pete Huryk

pepsiLast century (specifically in the 1980s) Pepsi had commercials and other advertising with the “Pepsi Challenge”.  An “unbiased” consumer was asked to try two different colas and give their preference.  Of course the on-camera participants always chose Pepsi.  Perhaps it was what they truly liked or the entire thing was rigged in some way.  In all honesty it doesn’t matter that much to me because I preferred Pepsi to Coke without the seeing choices of others.  It does make for an interesting discussion on why we choose the things that we do.

In a given day, you have literally thousands and possibly millions of choices to make.  Some of these choices are simple and probably automatic.  For example “Am I going to wear clothes today?”  No matter whether the answer is yes or no, it is an easy choice based on your daily life.  Other choices are much more complex and require major deliberation.  Choosing to go to college or the military is life-altering and for many would demand some time and attention.  In the middle of the automatic and grandiose decisions are many moment to moment choices that need to be made by you.  There are many people who treat these mid-level choices as though they were huge.  Others put all of their choices on automatic pilot letting others decide for them.  The worst scenario is that people forget that they are choosing at all.

In each moment, you have choices and some of the most important are about how you are going to feel.  Believe it or not, it is a choice.  If you are feeling sad, it is a choice.  Perhaps there are very good reasons for you to choose that but it is your choice.  By taking the physical state of your body, your mental focus of the moment and your inner dialogue, you determined the feeling that you were going to produce.

So now I put a new “Pepsi Challenge” on to you.  Let’s call it the “Huryk Challenge”.  Can you choose to feel good in all circumstances today?  No matter what life throws at you, can you CHOOSE to feel good.  You do not need to like the circumstances but you choose your feeling despite the poor situation.  I challenge you.

Choose to have a great day!

Pete

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Full Throttle All the Time

Pete Huryk

BoltWe are not machines.  It seems as though we wish that we were at times.  However the human animal is not infallible and fatigues just like any other creature on earth.  If you look at the World Records for running events, there are a few truths that you can learn about humans.

World Records for varied differences.  Please check my math, it’s late and it might not be perfect.

100 meters – Usain Bolt – 9.58  (23.37 MPH) (2 min 34.14 sec per mile)

200 meters – Usain Bolt – 19.19 (23.31 MPH) (2 min 34.38 sec per mile)

1 mile – Hicham El Guerrouj – 3:43:13 (16.13 MPH)

5K (3.12 Miles) – Kenenisa Bekele – 12:37.35 (14.83 MPH) (4 min 02.74 sec per mile)

Marathon (26.2) – Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto – 2:02:57 (12.78 MPH) (4 min 41.68 sec per mile)

After all of those numbers, names and information, what is my point?  You need to know what race you’re running in order to determine “full throttle”.  Each of these amazing athletes ran their race as fast as they could for the distance that they had to cover.  Usain Bolt’s 100 meter record is amazing but his pace is completely unrealistic over a 26.2 mile race.  Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto’s pace for a marathon is astounding but if he ran a 100 meter at that pace, he’d be considered “slow”.  The key is to know the race that you are in and what “full throttle” means for that race.

This is applicable to many areas of real life.  For example intimate relationships.  If you are looking to get married, recognize that it is a marathon.  Expect that the pace is slow and steady in order for it to last for years.  High school relationships are usually over in a few months, so the sprinter’s pace of spending every moment together is natural.

So what kind of races are you in at the moment?  Recognize what “full throttle” means for each of those races.  Perhaps there’s a project that is a sprint, then sprint that project.  Maybe at the same time you need to take control of your health, which is a marathon (figuratively).  Then you need to marathon your health.

Regardless of which form of “full throttle” you are in, realize that you are human.  The expectation that you can maintain Usain Bolt speed for 26.2 miles is ridiculous.  Don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations.  Recognize the race and go after it intelligently!

Go full throttle today!

Pete